Here’s a low-down on the good, bad and the ugly of opening my garden to the public.
With over 150 public open-days under my belt, that have seen me welcome almost 23,000 visitors in to see my garden, I’m sure you will appreciate, there have been an eclectic mix of incidents reflecting the good, the bad and the ugly. I have to say the vast majority fall in the“good” but I’ll recount one “bad” and one “ugly” moment that I’ve encountered along the way too. Read on!
If I’m being honest, many good accounts usually involve a 4-legged visitor. We welcome well-behaved dogs on leads and always make a great fuss of them. Dogs are like family in our world!
Cherished memories
If I had to select two of my very favourite visitors, it would have to be John and Lois Starley, who hail from Eastbourne and had been visiting my garden for many years now. They used to come on NGS open days but since we went by arrangement only, a few years ago, they used to book three separate visits throughout the summer and enjoy coffee and coffee cake plus making occasional purchases. I’d like to dedicate this feature to Lois, who sadly passed away earlier this year, so the garden will be a sadder place this summer, without her cheery smile.
Special events
One very memorable garden visit occurred a couple of years ago when Sylvester (see main pic) was planning a weekend away in order to propose to his beautiful fiancée. He decided on Sussex and was looking for interesting venues to visit. One of them was Driftwood and he wrote on Trip Advisor, “
It was the weekend of my engagement to my fiancée, and I wanted to do something special, but intimate at the same time, and the idea of a garden visit sounded perfect – but was I wrong. It was BEYOND perfect. First off, prior to our visit, Geoff was incredibly communicative, and responded to all emails in quick time. He warmly greeted us on the day, gave us a super informative talk on the history of the garden, and we had several opportunities to take lots of photos.
Now onto the garden itself – It felt like we were carried into a time capsule, and transported to somewhere magical. The garden (both front and back) was incredibly well looked after, lots of beautiful plants, greenery, within an eclectic mix of unique ornaments, and handmade local gifts. My fiancée and I took lots of beautiful photos, and also enjoyed slices of delicious home baked cakes by Geoff. He also put a special touch with a ‘Just Engaged’ cake topper in my fiancée’s cake, which was a simple but genuinely lovely gesture.
P.S. The front garden is lovely, but the back garden really takes it up a few notches, so if you visit, take your time, and make sure to see it all and take it all in.
All to say, for the price we paid for this, we had a brilliant morning, lovely tour, super attentive host, and wonderful memories.
Highly, highly, highly recommend. We will be back, undoubtedly. Thanks, Geoff!
Both they and I had a warm uplifting moment!
Before we move on to a couple of less successful visits, I have to mention the lovely Christine Walkden, TV gardener, who for 10 years was the Patron of the Macmillan Cancer Support Garden trail I organized. Christine made 3 visits to Sussex over that time to open the trail and it was always a great pleasure to welcome her to Driftwood. I think she fell in love with Chester on her last visit.
What?? No carrot cake?
I can only really recall one bad experience and that was way back when we began. It was a public open day and I had a large selection of cakes on display for sale in the kitchen and three guys came in wanting to walk around with a coffee. I explained we served it all on trays with cups and saucers and it may be best to wait and sit down to enjoy it. Reluctantly, they agreed and when they then came to the kitchen to choose a cake, I could hear them mumbling to each other in my earshot about the fact I had no carrot cake. You can’t imagine how angry this made me, having invited them into my kitchen to make a selection. I’ll leave you to imagine my choice of words asking them to leave at once.
A bit of road rage
So, what was the ugly option! Well, in the early days we had many visitors on open days and occasionally there were issues with parking outside the house on the road. While there were no parking restrictions, some visitors were less thoughtful than others on how to park. I’ve known times when my visitors were sat enjoying tea and cake in the beach garden and there were frustrated drivers who opened their windows shouting abuse at them about the traffic jam that was occurring, as the road became one way with the parking on one side. All very upsetting. A useful ploy at the time was to have the Mayor of Seaford taking money at the gate which usually helped soothe the situation.
That said, there are many more good experiences that far outweigh the bad!
